The Crying Grass
The crying grass
(for the late Victor Jara,* Pablo Neruda
and Salvador Allende)
by ‘bro. zayid’
In this stadium
of footlaunched spotted balls
of what should be promising soccer stars…
In this stadium
reeking with the stench of terror
and the numbing sounds of death…
In this stadium
whose horror riddled circling winds
repel the doves and the sparrows…
In this stadium
echoing with insane insistent
martial march of hardhoofed soldiers
primed for fleshopening madness…
In this stadium
of gagged people’s poems
of throat slashed people’s songs
their bloodmuffled melodies
missing their companion audience’s eyes
repelling the wings and the whistles
of the doves and the sparrows
with their blood splatter
on our faces and our shirts…
In this stadium
haunted with the harrowed harmonies
of a guitar played with krushed fingers
and a bayoneted heart…
In this stadium
of paraded corpses and paralyzed eyes
of long lines of skulls
freshly popped open in the back by gunfire…
In this stadium
where democracy was lynched
by imperialism’s sanctioned
and uniformed
hyenas
and then buried in an anonymous heap…
There were no heroes here…
Only the massacred and martrys…
Their bleeding breathless torsos
had just watered the crying grass
and their stars had just been
shot thru the eye in the sky…
In this stadium…
In this stadium
there were no promising soccer stars
to behold
No footlaunched spotted balls finding goals
No tickets to be bought and sold
No fans on hand to cheer
No smiling confetti
sparkling for all to hear
No cameras rolling and snapping
to capture what happened
in that horrific vomitous moment…
In this stadium
In this stadium
In this stadium
barking and cracking with orders to fire
and the gutsplitting bursts of bullets
There were no heroes…
Their bloodied breathless torsos
had already watered the crying grass
and their stars once heated with hope
had already been shot
thru the eye in the sky…
*Chilean people’s artist Victor Jara…
Killed in a stadium massacre in a purge that accompanied the CIA sponsored military overthrow of the democratically elected socialist president
Salvador Allende in September 1973…Several thousand Allende supporters were rounded up by the military at a
soccer stadium and slaughtered in a mass execution…
Augusto Pinochet, who emerged Chile’s dictator for years, is responsible for over 3000 killings and the torture of over 30,000. There was a recent effort to have Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nunez, one of his surviving officers believed to have directly responsible for the beating and shooting of Jara, held liable for his role Jara’s death in this massacre…
©1999 all rights
Copyright © Zayid Muhammad | Year Posted 2016
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